Guest column: the wrath of solicitors
Saddleback College is a place where people from all over southern Orange County gather to expand their education and goals in life to achieve a higher status in society. But in this day and age it has been on the downward spiral of devolution. The reason for this is that evil breed of creatures called solicitors. They have been steathily multiplying in silence; now they are poised to overwhelm us with their meaningless sales pitches and artifically created demand. Solicitors are roaming our campus, a pack of wild zombies wishing to chew our brains away with useless information and pyramid schemes. These people only want to take what is most valuable to you and sell it to the highest bidder, your soul. Just because it’s said that school is the safest place that you can be, it actually isn’t.
On any ordinary day on this abnormally sunny campus, you could be walking down the path going to your next class only to be bombarded by several groups asking you to but into their schtick. Being the humans that we are, we feel inclined to give them our sympathy and buy into their demands, but at times this isn’t the best decision. Here is a perfect example of a conversation between a solicitor and you, the innocent miniature college student.
“Hello sir, how are you doing today?” says the large man in a size small shirt, “Would you be interested in signing up for a free 14 day membership at Hard Bodies Gym?”
Looking down at your own physique, you notice that you are approximately 1/5th his body size. If he wanted to, he could crush you with his bald shiny head and mustache. Not knowing if this man is serious or not, you reply, “Sure.”
Fourteen days later, you notice that you are completely broke and financially insecure because you have just given away your credit card information, driver’s license, and social security card. You have basically became erased; there is now a forty year old man with a bald head and a mustache wearing your size adjusted clothes, sitting in on your classes, and going out with your girlfriend. Becoming the biggest, fastest, and coolest kid with that free membership really didn’t work out in the end.
Sadly, we are only going to see more aggresive and intrusive solicitors in the upcoming years. Just like if they were Orcs bred in the heart of Mordor, their armor will only become thicker, and their words will only become more convincing. Hawking everything from Hard Bodies Gym memberships to the Latter Day Saints, McDonald’s Exercise Programs, Real Estate Agents, Blue Tooth Republicans (BTR), Team Rocket, these scary apocalyptic demons will gorge on the naive or unwitting. We must be ready and hold fast to the hope that by standing firm in our beliefs we can fight the good fight and send these spawns of hell back to whence they came. If we give up and lose the fight, we will soon be assimilated like the Borg. Captain Picard once said, “Resistance is futile.” Well guess what, you were wrong, Picard… you were wrong…